


This Does Seem Inevitable

by neverthelessthesun



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Declarations Of Love, Drabble, F/M, Love Letters, No Dialogue, canon SUX, come at me writers, depending on how you look at it, oooooooo scary i never do canon stuff bc guess what, or maybe all dialogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-07-19 23:47:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19982548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neverthelessthesun/pseuds/neverthelessthesun
Summary: A letter from Natasha Romanov to Clint Barton, written on Vormir.This fic contains Endgame spoilers.





	This Does Seem Inevitable

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, and thanks for clicking! 
> 
> It's been a while since I've written a Clintasha ficlet, but they really are one of my first loves in the Marvel Fandom. I'm never going to drop them completely. 
> 
> Unbeta'd mess I threw together in like ten minutes. Please forgive me any mistakes.
> 
> This is formatted as a letter Nat writes in her head, in her final moments.

Clint—

Was there ever going to be another option?

Maybe. Maybe back in the beginning, before you knew me or I knew you, before time made prisoners of us all. Before we fell into bed together, and out of it again, and back into it. Before we lost Coulson, before we lost SHIELD. Before we lost so much we couldn’t breathe. 

Maybe, back in the beginning, there was a different path for us. But it was dark and full of monsters, of things crawling in the deep. We both had had our fair share of monsters, at that point. 

Do you remember the first time I saw you? Probably not. You knew I was around, but you didn’t know I was that close. Close enough to see you. You weren’t as alert as you should have been. I saw you, swallowing stale coffee and hash browns in a diner window, while the rain poured down on the world and the waitress looked on fondly. You looked so young to me—but then, weren’t we all young, then? Weren’t we all older than we should have been, at our age?

I watched you eat like a starving man, and smile cheekily at the waitress. I saw a target, a mission. I was ready.

Back then, there was a different path. 

But when you saw me, for the first time. six days and a thousand miles later. You took one look, Hawkeye, and you saw deeper into me than anyone ever had. You looked at me and you saw something worth saving, and that was definitely more than anyone else saw. Than I saw. 

So, we went home. (It wasn’t home yet, but it would be.) We went to sleep and to work and to eat in the mess, and we tried not to kill the idiots we worked with. I suppose in that sense, it’s not so different from many people’s meeting stories. _We met through work. It was boring, but we weren’t bored together._

I worked so hard, that first year. For the first time, I wanted something other than what I’d been told I could have. I wanted to claw my way out of the monsters, and be something of a tool for the side of the angels. I wanted the clench of your jaw, the surety of your speech. You were good, plain and simple, even with your scars. You made it seem like I could be, too. It was a savior to me, to have the promise—not even a promise. An inkling—that I could be better than before.

Everything that came between then and now is already recorded. They wrote it down, either for the classified files to be buried deep underground, or the history books they started printing after New York. I won’t repeat any of it, except to say that it was the best years of my life and I’m never going to be sorry for it, not even once.

This does seem inevitable, but not because a mad alien titan declared it. Because you are you, and I am me, and we were always going to find ourselves down a man. There was never going to be a happy ending, not for us. But, Clint, if this is as close to a happy ending as we can get, would you trade it? Would you throw it all away? would you?

I shouldn’t ask. I know the truth. I guess I’m asking because, I want you to know my answer, too. I know I’m not the most forthcoming, when it comes to…feelings. You know love is a daydream, for children. 

You know. You know the truth, too.

~N

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are much appreciated! <3
> 
> Come find me on [tumblr](https://nvrthlessthsun.tumblr.com/).


End file.
